


One last time

by spiritscript



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Cafe Funiculi Funicula, Angst, Coffee, Established Relationship, M/M, Magical Realism, Not Canon Compliant, Sad, Time Travel, don't need to know the book
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,976
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26423542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spiritscript/pseuds/spiritscript
Summary: When all the pieces are in place, Atsumu picks up the kettle and finally lets his practised air falter. “Are you sure?”Osamu nods, “Yes. I need to know.”Silently, Atsumu begins to pour.Based on the book "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, where a single cup of coffee in an inconspicuous little cafe has the ability to allow you to travel through time.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 12
Kudos: 88
Collections: SunaOsa





	One last time

**Author's Note:**

> Mind the warnings!
> 
> As mentioned, this is based on the novel "Before the Coffee Gets Cold" by Toshikazu Kawaguchi, but you don't need to have read it to understand the story, I explain all the necessary information.

“I’m gonna go over the rules,” Atsumu says definitively. 

Osamu would argue but he feels too tired, a tiredness that seeps from somewhere deep inside him, simultaneously filling him and hollowing the husk that was once his body.

He knows the rules, had repeated them like an incantation an incalculable amount of times since he was old enough to say them, before he even understood them and the weights they held. It was important that they knew the intricacies of the cafe and the services they provided to the point they became a part of them. Most specifically, they needed to sear the intricacies of their special brand of time travel into their subconscious memory until they felt like they were just as much a part of them as the pale scars littering his and Atsumu’s bodies.

He could recite the rules without thinking. He could recite them in reverse order. He could recite them in three languages, even if that was the extent of his knowledge of the languages. He could literally recite them in his sleep if he was to believe Rin.

“I know ya know them but,” Atsumu hesitates, tapping what looks to be a thin thermometer against the back of his hand anxiously, “it’ll make me feel better.”

Osamu nods, he understands this. Sending someone back always held a sense of trepidation for them, no matter how much they separated themselves from the action or repeated age old warnings, it still made them anxious despite their years of feigning indifference. But knowing the person undertaking the trip made it so much worse. Then there were the specific personal circumstances that made it ever more precarious; and unfortunately for Atsumu, Osamu fit perfectly into both areas of particular anxiety.

Atsumu closes his eyes, schooling his face, breathing deeply to acquire composure and straightens up. When he opens his eyes again, he is no longer Osamu’s twin brother, he’s Miya Atsumu, co-owner of Cafe Funiculi Funicula. He’s Miya Atsumu, professional miracle performer and detached medium through which they can be performed.

He recites the rules in a practised, detached air, never faulting in his perfectly constructed guise, and Osamu could almost imagine they didn’t know each other.

One: You can only meet someone that has been to the cafe before.

Two: Nothing you do in the past can significantly change the present, details may be altered but nothing can change.

Three: Only the seat Osamu is now sitting in can take you to the past, a seat usually occupied by the spectre of a woman who only leaves it once a day.

Four: When you go back, you cannot leave the seat.

Five: You must finish the special coffee that facilitates this travel before it goes completely cold. If you don’t, you will become the ghost to haunt the seat. 

“Understood?” Atsumu asks and Osmau nods. confirmation acquired, he walks to the kitchen and Osamu can hear the gentle familiar scuffle of the coffee being prepared and the china being collected.

Atsumu returns carefully holding an ornate tray, occupied with a singular innocuous coffee cup, and a silver kettle. 

Atsumu places each individual item on the table slowly and carefully. When he’s done, he places the small thermometer-like device, actually a heat sensitive alarm, in the cup.

“That’s not necessary.” Osamu murmurs, almost petulantlu. If this was under any other circumstances, he imagines Atsumu would, at the very least, shoot him a glare, at most punch him across the jaw; but instead he remains placid, detached. 

“Humour me then,” is his simple, stoic reply.

Osamu nods, he wasn’t going to fight him on it. He’d do the same for any customer under the circumstances; it wasn’t special treatment. Osamu would too.

When all the pieces are in place, Atsumu picks up the kettle and finally lets his practised air falter. “Are you sure?”

Osamu nods, “Yes. I need to know.” 

Silently, Atsumu begins to pour.

Osamu had been told, though he never asked, what it felt like to travel through time like this. He’d heard about the sensation of being taken apart and put back together like water turning into steam turning into droplets, the hazy disconnect from reality as it rewrote itself. So he opted to close his eyes, hoping the lack of visuals might help him remain more stable, less discombobulated, as the steam from the coffee gently drifted into the air and began to envelope him.

He takes slow, deep breaths and feels everything everyone had ever described as if through a warped lens; they hadn’t been right, though they hadn’t been wrong. It was one of those sensations that could never be captured through articulation, that once over couldn’t be recaptured.

“Samu... what are you doing here? And in that chair?” His eyes flicker open at the voice, a voice he could never hear enough, one he’d attempted to carve into his soul over and over again, one that never failed to elicit a Pavlovian response in his chest and stomach like the implosion of a star. He became vaguely aware of fantasy worlds where sounds could be captured, bottled, stored for eternity - his only allowed time travel.

He shrugs purposefully, weighing every action he was to make. “Honestly?” he asks, a slow grin on his lips, “’m sick a people askin’ me what it's like an’ not knowing the answer, so I figured why not?”

Suna Rintarou looks him up and down, as he had done a hundred thousand times before, those perpetually narrowed eyes narrowing even further.

“Why today?” The words roll off his tongue, curious and cautious and as reckless as a child reaching for a hot stove.

“Why not?”

Osamu receives a raised eyebrow and an annoyed scowl, though both are sullied by a fondness in his features reserved entirely for Osamu; when he made these same expressions at anyone else they were far sharper, far slicker.

“No seriously,” Osamu continues, “why not? I’ve nothing or no one I particularly want to see, it’s only a few days ago for me, why not just spend it with my favourite person?” His voice raises to a purposeful teasing at the end, just as he had planned, the same way he would have always asked such a question.

“You could have visited your granny.” Suna offers seriously, leaning on the counter he is standing behind, calculating and considering as always, always trying to think beyond what was presented before him.

“Yeah but,” he searches for his imaginary script, “I accepted her death a long time ago, I don’t need to open old wounds.”

Suna stays in place and watches him for any signs of a tell. Unfortunately, Osamu had years of learning to lie, or at least evading the truth; it came with being a twin, most specifically being the twin of a dumbass that would drag him to hell with him without a second thought.

“Are ya gonna keep standin’ over there or won’t ya join me? Ya know I can't move.” Suna seems to give up on his silent inquest, and complies, taking the seat opposite Osamu. It's not like anyone else was in the cafe.

As Suna sits, his eyes are drawn to the device in Osamu’s cup. They widen slightly, and he looks quickly at Osamu, who waves a waiting hand and laughs dismissively.

“No no, don’t worry, this is jus’ ‘Sumu trynna be an overprotective ‘older’,” he makes air quotes here, “brother.”

Suna’s face flickers, but he accepts it; or else just doesn’t want to admit what its presence signifies. No one likes to think about that happening to themselves. 

“We’re seeing each other later, you have that fancy restaurant booked.”

Osamu sighs and rolls his eyes dramatically in mock exasperation, “maybe fer you, but not fer me. An’ y'know...I was bored ‘n’ nosey.” That was in line with his character, nothing that could arouse suspicion.

Osamu takes a sip of the coffee, judging the time he has left, maybe 10 minutes, 7 to be careful. 

“Can we stop talkin’ about it, look I figured I might as well use it now. Yeah, maybe a time will come when I think I want to use it more, but what benefit is that ta me? I’d rather use it on an inconsequential day an’ get some extra time with ya rather than worry myself sick over the past at a future date.”

Suna nods, accepting that. “You're so gross. So obsessed with me," he states with a signature lack of inflection. 

“Shut up.”

At that, Suna grins that sly, smug smile that Osamu had come to fall in love with over and over and over again, never thought he could stop loving. Osamu wraps his hands around the mug to help him gauge the temperature, even if he did have the extra precaution.

“How’s yer day anyway?” Osamu asks, needing to hear him speak just a little more.

“You probably know better than me,” Suna counters.

“Enlighten me,” Osmau says maybe a bit too softly, but if Rin notices it or thinks it strange, he doesn’t say.

“There was a child screaming on the train the whole way here so I’ve a headache. My back hurts from the uncomfortable seats. You’re, well the you of my timeline, couldn’t be here to greet me unfortunately -not complaining, just saying-” he raises his hands in defense, grinning cheekily, “and your brother is an ass who has me watching the cafe while he goes to the konbini. At least he’s getting me painkillers but… I’m looking forward to my evening.” He finishes, looking at Osamu, his usually bored and sardonic expression replaced with only a soft smile and eyes. “I hate that I’m only here for a few days, I promise I’ll get down for longer next time.”

Something somewhere between Osamu's throat and chest constricts as he smiles. He places his hand on the table, palm up for Rin to take. He rolls his eyes at the gesture but complies without hesitation, his long fingers hooking Osamu’s.

“You know,” Rin says, considering Osamu and the seat he is sitting in, “maybe you have the right idea.” He seems to look into Osamu’s soul then, and Osamu’s pocket feels so incredibly heavy. 

He sips the coffee. 

He’s running out of time.

“Rin,” he starts seriously, “I actually kinda lied. I actually came here for a reason. I…” he trails off trying to figure out how to word it, what to say, even though he had practised it a million times over, repeated it constantly like a prayer over the past three days. Weighing how much to say and how much to not. “I came here because I was supposed to ask you something three days ago and I never did.” It wasn’t a lie, nothing he had said today had been. It was a careful balance of untruths, of withholding information and precise disclosure, but it was beginning to feel far too close to dishonesty. “I wanted to fix that.” He reaches the hand not entangled with Rin’s, into his pocket, feeling the soft fabric of the velveteen box and pulls it out, placing it in the centre of the table beside their hands; an offering.

Rin watched all of this with his careful, calculating eyes once again. He doesn’t say anything.

Osamu feels his stomach tighten. After all these years, he still couldn’t always decipher the expressions on Rin's face. That was a lie, but he pretended it wasn't because it was better than acknowledging the truth and that was that Rin was looking at the little black box with a face painted in annoyance.

“‘Samu...”

“’s fine if ya say no, I get it, nothin’ has ta change-” he starts to ramble. A cold pit has formed in his stomach, ready to consume the sparks that had, up to this point, fluttered and bounced wildly inside of him.

Rin half stands and reaches over the table, one hand still covering Osamu’s, and uses the other to cover Osamu’s mouth; Osamu who cannot help his sibling instinct to stick his tongue out and lick it.

Rin pulls his hand back and lands heavily back in his seat. He’s laughing. It's a sound that easily fills the entire cafe, a sound that he didn’t make half enough, another sound that Osamu wants to capture.

“You like to think you’re so much smarter than Atsumu, but you’re just as much an idiot,” Rin manages through hiccuping laughs.

It's not until Rin pulls out a red but almost identical box from his own pocket that Osamu begins to understand.

“I too was going to wait until later, but I’m guessing I chickened out if you’re here. I would say you wanted to beat me to it, but the look on your face tells me I mustn’t have asked you either.”

He feels the stinging at the back of his eyes, the welling and eventual spilling of tears and tries to roughly rub them away.

Rin is laughing again, so full of life. “I can’t believe I’m in love with such an idiot… and engaged I think?”

Osamu can only nod frantically unable to say anything, the stinging now in his throat.

A shrill sound slices the atmosphere.

They both look down at the little alarm, and panickedly, Osamu looks back at Suna one last time.

“Come on drink it, I’ll see you later.”

Grabbing the little red box, he downs the black coffee and almost chokes himself.

As the clouds and wisps of smoke start to envelop him, he finds his voice. “I love you Rin, forever,” such words would usually prompt a snarky, playful remark from Rin, but Osamu is too far between the steam of time that he doesn’t think he’ll hear any retort. 

Then, one last clear sentence pierces his heart. 

“I love you too. Always.”

He finds himself facing the all too familiar face of his brother all too soon.

Atsumu slumps back into his seat, clearly relieved, and begins to place everything back on the tray, but doesn’t make to leave the table. 

Osamu breathes deeply, trying to connect his thoughts to his body. Slowly the feelings begin to roll over him, that sting returning to his eyes, and he lets all of it consume him as the tears start to fall. Suddenly it’s wracking his whole body; wet sobs, shoulders shaking, lungs burning. He drops his face into his hands, he cannot bear to see the seat that Rin had been sitting in just moments ago. He doesn't want to see anyone but him. 

The spectral voice of the woman somehow slides beneath and wiggles its way through the cacophonous sound of his grief. “That’s my seat,” it says.

And suddenly he is laughing. He doesn’tknow why, but he is.

He tries to stand, stumbles out of his chair waiting for the pain of the fall, but Atsumu is there waiting for him. 

Atsumu takes his elbow and guides Osamu to another chair he cannot see through the blur of his vision. He sits him down and Osamu continues his hysterical, sobbing laughter; a loud painful sound embodying the far more painful emotions he couldn’t believe his body could hold.

He eventually begins to calm down, the laughter and sobs breaking, the pauses between each lengthening. He opens his eyes once again to see Atsumu’s face. At some point, his brother must have tidied away Osamu’s tray, refilled the woman’s own coffee mug, and placed a new cup, one filled with lavender tea, in front of Osamu. Trying to steady himself, to drown anymore noises that wished to escape him, Osamu sips it. It’s gone cold. Incredibly, he finds this too vaguely, morbidly funny, the thought that he’s probably spent as long laughing and crying as he had just spent with Rin. He doesn't laugh again though. He doesn’t think there's anything left inside of him.

The entire time, Atsumu had remained respectfuly quiet, but Osamu knows he wants to know.

Not trusting his voice, or even that he had one left, he pulls out the little red box, and presents it to Atsumu.

It seems to take him a moment to realise, but he still says, “that’s not the box you bought.”

Osamu shakes his head and Astumu nods.

“I toldja he’d’ve said yes,” there’s no bite in his words, just confirmation of how much he knew that Suna Rintarou loved his brother.

“I miss him.”

Atsumu gets up to stand beside him, wrapping his arms around his brother, pulling him against himself, as if this action could in any way protect him from the tearing emptiness destroying him from the inside. “I know.”

“This wasn’t supposed to happen.”

“I know.”

Osamu picks up the box, vaguely wondering where it would be now if he hadn’t gone back and gotten it, but that doesn’t matter. He opens it and sees the small silver band and slips it onto his finger; it fits perfectly. He looks at the way the light catches it, and feels the need to cry again, but it really feels as if there's nothing left inside him.

“I still love him so much. There’s still all this love for him that I don’t know what to do with.”

Atsumu stays silent for just another moment.

“No one said you had to stop loving him, that you ever have to stop.”

They stay like that in the empty cafe, a sitting Osamu staring at his finger, leaning against a standing Atsumu. Around them, the cafe stays the same, frozen. They hadn’t opened the store that day, they’d had elsewhere to be.

“It’s not fair.”

“No.” Atsumu agrees, “it’s not.”

There’s one final rule that Osamu knows, but they rarely have to tell customers. 

You can only time travel once.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sorry.
> 
> In the book, for anyone that hasn't read it, the thermometer alarm is implied to only be used when someone is visiting someone that has passed away to prevent them from losing track of time.
> 
> I do imagine Osamu falls in love again ~~with Kita who respects Osamu's love for Rin and cherishes it about him because he too loved him as a friend and doesn't feel second to it I could keep going~~
> 
> feel free to let me know your thoughts or give out to me here or on [twitter](https://twitter.com/ohmiyamy)


End file.
